I have some fantastic news! I have been awarded an ACE small grant for Revolution and Resonance 2017. After a self initiated research residency at Ashburnham Place in Battle. I formed the project using the space around me, the materials around me and the people around me. It is a space for visitors both international and local to come and either work, live or take time out. There are bigger more obvious events throughout the year and almost invisible daily occurrences of connection and development often over coming personal issues.
So the time line: last September, yes 10 actual months ago, I began the online ACE application and over the subsequent months attended ACE and local authority seminars, including Dodge the Shredder run by Emila Telese (which is excellent especially if you have a real project to work on and for more info see an earlier post) and used my Professional development bursary from The Artists Information Company to receive mentoring whilst putting applications together. Through this process of discussion with mentors about what it was I was asking for and how it would benefit me as an artist I defined and refined my project and my practice.
I used an opportunity to make a website earlier in the year (April) while I was recovering from a hip replacement operation which also clarified for me what my practice was currently about and how to communicate that. Here it is.
All the people I spoke to and built relationships with seemingly inconsequentially at the time – in passing or over coffee during the last 2 years but actually further back than that too, all became instrumental in contributing towards the application.
My original idea was re visited and re worked and most importantly made achievable and real by the circumstances and location I was in. So when I eventually made it to the stage of submitting the bid, July 2016, I was quite confident it was a robust application with a good balance of enough public engagement and enough artistic development – it and I had been through the ‘mill’.
The project gives me the chance to work with another skilled artist Annemarie O’Sullivan and to receive mentoring from Judith Alder which gives me a platform to progress to the next stage professionally with an exciting body of work properly recorded. Revolution and resonance is a project about rotation and change, touching on the familiar and drawing out the unseen. I still have to secure a bit more local funding and so far have been given £100 by a local business man straight from his pocket! Again this was a result of networking, as a school mum I have been until recently actively involved in the PTA and this meant I had knowledge of businesses that had a track record of giving to local projects and contacts with business employees through other parents. For a very local project this is invaluable and I have felt for a long time that its best to start small with what and who you know. So thanks to Emily for recommending me to her neighbour and friend ‘THE’ Tim Keeley, master cricket bat maker a warm and generous local business man.
I want to say categorically in this blog that this would not have been possible if I had not been awarded the re:view bursary in 2015. initially it gave me the foundation and confidence to grow and develop professionally beyond my expectations. Some aspects of my progress have surprised me like being able to take much longer over developing pieces of work and valuing the ‘not making’ time as much as the making itself. Earlier posts are witness to the struggle. It has on occasion felt uncomfortable and self indulgent but now I feel that the naval gazing was necessary and that it has given me the opportunity to deepen my practice. I used to think my work was about depth now I think I have depth to my work. Thanks for supporting me and reading my blog.
